Young Joseph MacDonald, too, knew what he was talking about when he included this diagram, right, of the bagpipe scale in his book.
Remember, Joseph wrote his book in the 1760s.
Try this exercise, ensuring there are no imperfections in the clarity of performing each note.
A wee reminder that your drone reeds should be 100% airtight. This was always the first principal of cane reeds. Not only does it make your reeds far more air efficient, if the reed is leaking air this will distort the drone harmonics. It is like having distortion on a radio channel you are listening to. Blow the reed in your mouth just enough that it stops sounding, there should be no air leakage whatsoever. Or cork your chanter stock and blow your pipes until the drones stop, you should not hear air leaking from the drone tops. You can see me doing this in a video on my reed product page.
A friend of mine who is a well-respected player was getting headaches every time he played his pipes. I told him to perform the 'blow test’ on his drone reeds and he found they leaked air when shut off. He replaced them with my drone reeds and the difference was instantaneous. He experienced a far better and more stable sound – and with no more headaches.
I was fortunate to have had lesson for many years from Captain Andrew Pitkeathly, both during his time in the military and later at his house before his death in 1994. Andrew used to say he was not interested in teaching people to win Gold Medals but more than happy to pass on the music. What he meant was he was not going to spend a year going over the same Gold Medal tunes every week but by teaching/going over other different tunes he believed you would learn more about the music and therefore become a better player. He also used to say you have to put a wee bit of yourself into each tune. Andrew had spent time with Pipe Major Donald MacLeod MBE at Fort George near Inverness, Scotland, and was the first serving Sovereign's Piper. He spent four months every summer with Bob Brown and Bob Nicol – the 'Bobs of Balmoral' – at Balmoral for the eight years he served as ‘The Queen’s Piper’ before becoming Director of Army Piping in 1975 taking over from Captain John MacLellan MBE at Edinburgh Castle. He also taught Pipe Major Alisdair Gillies and Pipe Major Gordon Walker, who indeed put a lot of themselves into their music with great success. Alisdair never competed against the other competitors, only against himself. As long as he achieved his best performance, he was happy, this was more important than winning. Concentrate on what you can control, playing music and having a good performance – and not on winning.
Finally, I wish to thank all those who have sent some photos and videos of me playing and teaching through the years. These will all go on to my new website. If others have images they’d be willing to share please email them to me at bruce@highlandreeds.com including a caption of event and date. I would also encourage anyone who is playing my products to leave a product review on the appropriate produce page or leave a comment, video clip of you playing on the ‘Submit your comment/playing' page. There is a very interesting thread from a descendant from Donald MacDonald on Patricks Molard’s testimonial.
Have a grand August. Isn't it most unusual not to be heading to the Worlds?
